Reviewed By Susan Schenck

While researching the history of man’s diet, I found that numerous anthropologists felt cooking had some advantages that enhanced man’s evolution. I got a copy of a cooking manifesto, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human by Richard Wrangham, professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. (As a side note, my husband thought this was just another of my books that promote the raw food diet—to him, being human is not a plus; we should instead identify with our divine nature!)

In the first chapter, Richard Wrangham discusses studies showing how raw fooders do not get enough calories, claiming that this could not have sustained our ancestors and therefore, a raw food diet was not what we evolved on. Cooking, he explains, increases the number of calories we absorb.

But, I argue, these raw fooders are on mainly vegan diets, which tend to be lower in calories. What about the nuts, seeds, olives and avocados, which made some of us raw fooders (like me!) actually struggle with our weight at times? These, he insists, were only seasonally available before modern times.

OK, got it. But that only proves we were not raw vegans. What about all the raw meat and eggs our ancestors ate? Wrangham goes on to argue that cooking meat and eggs has been shown in tests to enhance digestibility and absorption of calories. The argument that raw foodists use against cooking meat—that cooking denatures protein—is something that he views as an advantage. Denaturing it makes it easier to digest. Ironically, he cites  the exact same study cited by Dr. Brantley (a raw meat promoter and author of The Cure) in which Dr. William Beaumont observes the digestion of a man (St. Martin) with a hole in his stomach. Richard says this study shows that cooked meat digests faster than raw meat! Dr. Brantley claimed the opposite—that raw meat digested faster. So I decided to purchase the book myself to see what the truth of the matter is. (It is free on google books, but I can’t read an entire book without being curled up in my rocking chair, and marking things up is my style of study!)

The author argues that the advantage of obtaining more calories from cooked starches ensured that humans got enough energy for survival. This may be true, but given our obesity epidemic, eating cooked starches is hardly an advantage in modern times. Furthermore, cooked grains and legumes, according to experts on the Paleo diet, were also not common in our diet until agriculture began about 10,000 years ago. These foods contain anti-nutrients (phytates and lectins) which create leaky gut syndrome leading to the diseases of civilization (arthritis, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, ALS, and much more).

Richard Wrangham points out that “from an evolutionary perspective, if cooking causes a loss of vitamins or creates a few long-term toxic compounds, the effect is relatively unimportant compared to the impact of more calories.” But evolution is not concerned about the longevity of the individual, only the survival of the species. For example, getting enough calories to remain fertile is great for the survival of the species. But studies abound showing that a calorie restricted diet enables the individual to live longer. So if cooking otherwise toxic tubers, grains and legumes helped us overpopulate the world, cooking did its job to ensure the survival of homo sapiens. But for the individual, eating raw is conducive to superior health and longevity, as proven by all the studies in my book The Live Food Factor.

The author argues that the studies which show cooking produces toxins need not alarm us, because these toxins will affect only animals, since humans have adapted to them. About half the studies in my book are on humans, though. They show that eating raw and giving the body a break from these toxins helps it to detox. Clearly, as Wrangham points out, we have been cooking for tens of thousands of years—enough time to adapt to these toxins. But the problem is that the molecules are so chaotic and unpredictable, scientists believe we will never be able to adapt. Also, blood tests on people who eat cooked food show leukocytosis—an increase in white blood cells (which indicate some toxins they are fighting). Such tests on people after they eat raw food do not demonstrate this increase in white blood cells!

Wrangham gives the old argument that it doesn’t matter if we eat food with enzymes or not, because the stomach digests the enzymes. However, an alternative theory is that in the first 30 to 60 minutes, these food enzymes help to digest the food in the upper cardiac stomach. I always tell people, if you don’t believe it, just eat everything raw for a few days and see how much more energy you have. (So far everyone I know can see a huge difference.) When we eat raw, we spare our pancreases of much labor in cranking out digestive enzymes to compensate for enzymes lost in the heat of cooking.

Richard argues that the human brain became larger not just from eating meat, but also from cooking. I wonder then, how does he explain the 11% shrinkage of the human brain in the last 10,000 years (coinciding with the onset of agriculture, when we began to cook much more)?

This book did make me realize that cooking began much earlier than I had thought. He cites evidence of cooking having occurred 2 million years ago, and credits the reduction of our gut, teeth and mouth size to eating cooked foods.

To the author’s credit, I no longer feel so bad about steaming my turkey. (At least I am not getting all the toxic load that comes with barbecuing or grilling it.) However, for me, it remains clear that raw is law.

Richard Wrangham is the Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University and Curator of Primate Behavioral Biology at the Peabody Museum. He is the co-author of Demonic Males and co-editor of Chimpanzee Cultures.

Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human (Basic Books/ 2009) by Richard Wrangham

Susan Schenck is author of The Live Food Factor

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